


One Way to Absolve His Crime

by Trelobita



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Adult Mabel Pines, But is it really?, Clothing Kink, Demon/Human Relationships, Dream Sex, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everything is consensual, F/M, Falling In Love, Feisty bottom Mabel, Flying, Friendship/Love, Future Fic, Human Bill Cipher, Introspection, Mabel is Intrigued, Mabel loves a snappy dresser, Mabel owns Bill, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Redemption, Rough Sex, Service top Bill, Sexual Tension, Shapeshifting, Slow Burn, Triangle Bill Cipher, Voyeurism, bi the way Mabel, dreamscape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24569188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trelobita/pseuds/Trelobita
Summary: After escaping destruction following his defeat during Weirdmageddon, Bill Cipher is trapped alone for decades in what seems to be a punitive limbo. Loneliness and boredom eventually compel him to look in on a particular human he had always favored over the others. He is fascinated by a new aspect of her character and what it awakens in him. What follows is a strange, unlikely friendship that just might hold the key to Bill's freedom and redemption
Relationships: Bill Cipher/Mabel Pines
Comments: 44
Kudos: 115





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super late to the Gravity Falls program. I fell madly in love with it in Spring of 2019. I also fell madly in love with Bill Cipher and Mabel Pines and have been wanting to write about them for ages! Finally got around to it!
> 
> I shamelessly lifted the title of this story (as well as the inspiration for the story itself) from the words of of Axolotl when Dipper asks it about Bill Cipher in the book "Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure: Select Your Own Choose-Venture!"
> 
> Sixty degrees that come in threes.  
> Watches from within birch trees.  
> Saw his own dimension burn.  
> Misses home and can't return.  
> Says he's happy. He's a liar.  
> Blame the arson for the fire.  
> If he wants to shirk the blame,  
> He'll have to invoke my name.  
> One way to absolve his crime.  
> A different form, a different time.

By earth reckoning, Bill Cipher was close to a trillion years old, far older than the age of the universe itself in the Third Dimension. Twenty years was less than the blink of an eye for him. Even so, the last twenty years had felt like an eternity. That’s how long he had been trapped in the collective Mindscape, unable to enter the Third Dimension, unable to return to the Nightmare Realm.

Bill had been elated, at first, when he woke up here. It meant that his incantation at the moment of his destruction had worked. It meant that he had escaped oblivion. But it hadn’t taken him long to realize that he was trapped. The Axolotl had spared him, but seemingly at the terrible cost of his freedom. Like before, he could see into the Third Dimension, and he could enter the dreams of sleeping humans if he wanted. But otherwise, he was trapped alone in this empty limbo, confused and infuriated by his humbled state. He had blown his chance to fuse the Third Dimension with the Nightmare Realm and suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of mortal human beings whom he had grossly underestimated.

He’d screamed and raged at the void around him for a time. He’d pleaded with Axolotl to let him out, speak to him, give him the slightest hint of what he needed to do to escape this purgatory, only to be met with silence. In a blind fury, he'd swept through the dreams of many random humans, venting his frustrations by furnishing them with monstrous nightmares. Nothing helped. Nothing changed.

When his tantrums had finally abated, he floated listlessly through the empty Mindscape, resigning himself to what was clearly a punishment.

Or a cruel joke.

Bill could think of nothing more excruciating than this. He was well acquainted with boredom. Most of the things he had done in his long existence had been motivated by it. But this was on a whole other level. And—though he could scarcely admit it to himself—he was lonely. In the eons before his brief conquering of and defeat in the Third Dimension, he had never really been alone. The inhabitants of the Nightmare Realm had provided entertainment, someone to bounce off of, use, and rally, but now, they were out of his reach. Initially, he had dismissed the idea of communicating with the humans of the Third Dimension (beyond giving them a bit of nightmare fuel now and again). They were the reason he was in this predicament, after all.

And so, he was left alone with his thoughts for years. For the first time in his life, he had nothing to do but think, which proved to be almost worse than the boredom and loneliness. He was forced to reflect on everything he had ever done, how it had all led to this. The chaos and mayhem he instigated over the eons had been delicious. He had thrived on it. But it had never been enough. He was forced to admit to himself that something had always been missing, and he still had no idea what it could be. And now, he was worse off than he’d ever been, powerless to soothe the oppressive emptiness inside him with the distraction of enacting chaos as he had done throughout his existence. It was truly maddening.

Unfortunately, coming clean to himself about the things he had done did nothing to change his present situation. He was still trapped. Still alone. Except—strangely enough— for his ability to interact with dreaming humans and observe them in the waking world.

Finally, Bill began to ponder this. Whatever was going on here—whether it was a joke, punishment, or a lesson—perhaps there was a reason why Axolotl had left him with access to the humans. Perhaps they might even hold the key to his escape from this endless limbo. Begrudgingly, he reconsidered his decision not to interact with them.

The Pines family immediately came to mind, the humans who were directly responsible for his defeat. Sure, they weren’t the most practical choice for obvious reasons. He knew they wouldn’t want to hear from him and learn he was still alive, and he likewise still harbored a marked resentment toward them, but that was far less boring than the indifference he felt for the rest of humanity.

Once Bill made the decision to seek them out, his first impulse was to look in on one of them in particular. The little girl, the Shooting Star of his zodiac, had always shown a particular talent for chaos, especially for a human. Bill had even liked her in a way, insomuch as he was capable of liking anyone. Surely she had gone on to do great and dynamic things with that chaotic energy.

And yet, when he found her, she was so far removed from what he remembered her as, he wondered if he had somehow made a mistake. There was no way that this defeated creature could be the vibrant child who’d had so much in common with him. She didn’t even have the excuse of being trapped in an empty void to explain her broken state.

Bill was troubled by this in ways he didn’t quite understand. He began to watch Shooting Star in her waking life and spy on her mind, memories, and dreams when she was asleep. It didn’t take him long to piece together her story.

It appeared that Shooting Star had remained her bouncy, rambunctious, optimistic self all through middle school and high school. She went to college for a degree in fashion design with plans to take the world by storm with her sweaters. She grew up, but never quite outgrew her petite cuteness. By the time she was college age, Pine Tree all but towered over her.

It was upon her graduation that things had taken a dark turn. Her fashion designs—eccentric to say the least—did not appeal to boring human sensibilities, though Bill rather liked them. They failed to land Shooting Star work in a fashion designing firm, and when she tried to open a store of her own, no bank would give her a business loan because they feared she would be a risky investment. She was saddled with a huge student loan debt that required her to seek a job immediately, so she had no choice but to take a position in a used clothing store, promising herself that it would only be temporary. She had remained optimistic and never quite gave up on her dreams for a long time, but what was meant to be temporary ten years ago remained her current situation now, and it appeared that the years had eventually taken their toll on her spirit.

And, as Bill pieced together through his increasingly obsessive research on Shooting Star, there had been a marriage. He noted with disdain that this now-ex-husband had been painfully dull and unimaginative, serving only to further grind down Shooting Star’s spirit, convictions, and sense of self. She ended it herself, several years ago, but the damage had been done. Bill’s resentment for humanity flared up as he sifted through these memories. He stewed over the fact that humans tended to ruin the best of their kind. The best, like Shooting Star. He held the human species in very low esteem, but he readily admitted that she definitely embodied the best of her kind.

But why, why would _she_ settle for someone so unremarkable and so determined to bring her down to his level? Bill’s disdain briefly extended to her for putting herself in that position, but he softened on her since she did ultimately put an end to the union. Still, he seethed. So much of what humans did made no sense to him. They seemed to be their own worst enemies. He _still_ thought that they actually would have benefited from his takeover. Sure, some would have died, but as far as Bill was concerned, death surely must be preferable to the lives that most humans lead.

By all outward appearances, Shooting Star was living in a state of defeat, her imagination and chaotic spirit eroded by life and circumstance. But, as Bill would discover, they had not died out completely, not by a long shot. Though she lived out her waking life in soul-crushing routine, her innate chaos continued to manifest through her dreams, particularly in a new kind of energy that had barely awakened in her as a child (though it had certainly been on its way), but set her entire being alight, now.

Sexual energy.

Her dreams were ripe with it. Bill found himself watching, transfixed, as Shooting Star sustained herself with intensely erotic fantasies in her Dreamscape. And he would continue to watch, fascinated and curious, as she awoke each morning and touched herself while the dreams were fresh in her mind.

It didn’t take long for this unexpected source of chaotic energy to start getting to Bill himself. To his astonishment, for the first time in millions of years, he experienced powerful stirrings of lust. It freaked him out that a _human_ , of all things, was doing this to him. But at the same time, he was intrigued. This was the first truly interesting thing he had experienced since his failed takeover of the Third Dimension. Shooting Star had no way of knowing, but she was bringing new life to him. He was so enthralled and invigorated by merely watching her that he completely forgot about his plans to actually communicate with a human.

***

For several months, Bill was perfectly content to remain out of sight, spending every moment watching Shooting Star and covertly basking in her chaotic sexual energy. He wasn’t motivated to do much else until one day,when something began to shift in the psyche of the little human he had come to think of as his. Her status quo was beginning to crumble, seemingly with no external catalyst at all. Bill could tell that she was miserable. He had known that since the moment he started watching her. But now, her misery was coming to a head. The vibrant dreams that had sustained her for so long were no longer enough for her. She needed a shakeup.

And—Bill realized with a start—he was just the being poised to provide that shakeup. Besides, he needed it as much as she did. He couldn’t sustain himself on her dreams if they were no longer enough to sustain _her_.

There was also the fact that he had finally worked up a compulsion to actually communicate with her, a compulsion driven in no small part by the sexual desire she had ignited in him. He had no idea why, but intuition told him that there might be something more to this. This could be the path to lead him out of the Mindscape limbo, _and_ he could have a little fun finessing and seducing Shooting Star in the process.

“And just so we’re clear,” he told himself, “you’re _not_ doing this because you have some lame sense of gratitude for her pulling you out of your mopey rut, or because you give a damn about the fact that she’s miserable. You can use her. You can have fun with her. She could be your ticket to freedom. You’re doing this for _you_. Not her.”

Bill willed away the burgeoning feelings swirling through his triangular being that did not quite match these thoughts. But there was no denying that he was excited to make contact with Shooting Star. He chose to relish that excitement and not think too hard on why it was there and what it meant as he waited impatiently for her day to come to an end.


	2. First Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just hear me out, okay? From one trapped agent of chaos to another...”

Bill watched Shooting Star as she went about her day, acting no differently than she had since he first started spying on her. If he hadn’t already known what was in her mind, he never would have suspected that anything was out of the ordinary. He watched her treat her customers and co-workers with customary kindness, offering everyone a strained smile. He watched her as she walked her usual route home to her apartment, the smile now gone from her face as her brown eyes glazed over in deep thought. When she was awake, Bill could not read her thoughts, but he knew they couldn’t be good if the somber expression on her face was any indication.

That suspicion was confirmed when she got home. Instead of commencing with her usual evening routine of ordering takeout and binging a few episodes of some show or another, Shooting Star went into her bedroom and opened the closet door, revealing the enormous collection of sweaters she had made over the years. Bill watched as she lovingly ran her fingers over some of them, watched as she sat down on the floor of the closet, tugging down a few of the sweaters and covering herself with them.

And then, she did something Bill had not seen her do since he had approached herdisguised as Blendin Blandin when she was a child. She started to cry. She cried so long and so hard that he was compelled to start talking to her, though he knew she wouldn’t be able to hear him.

“Go to sleep, Kid. Just go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep.”

He repeated the demand over and over until Shooting Star’s sobs finally quieted.

He heard her whisper, “I can’t do this anymore. Something’s got to give.” And then, mercifully, she was asleep.

Bill floated quietly in the Mindscape for a moment, puzzled by the magnitude of alarm he felt over what he had just witnessed. This wasn’t the first time he had seen a human lose their shit. In fact, he was usually the instigator of their suffering and had found it amusing every time. Something was different this time.

Bill banished the thought almost as quickly as it had manifested, irritated by the habit of self-scrutiny he had picked up during his twenty-year imprisonment. He waved a hand to pull Shooting Star’s consciousness into the Mindscape. All at once, the void around him began to shift and change, erupting into a rainbow-colored forest. Bill chuckled at this. Even in the midst of a meltdown, Shooting Star’s subconscious world manifested as something this colorful and creative. He floated through the towering trees, admiring their strange beauty, when he heard a quiet sob. There was his little human dreamer, sitting at the foot of one of the trees, still covered in a pile of her sweaters. Clearly, her last waking moments had followed her into her Dreamscape.

The demon hovered over her for a long moment, hesitant to say something. He knew that she would not be happy to see him. He had, after all, almost killed her just prior to his defeat. Bill was used to people reacting with fear or anger when he appeared to them, but he found he didn’t want to see that reaction from Shooting Star, now. In fact, he almost dreaded it. Finally, after steeling himself, he spoke up as gently as he could manage.

“You’re right, Shooting Star, something’s got to give.”

Shooting Star jerked upright with a start at the sound of his voice, her brown eyes shiny with tears as they found and focused on him. The expression of surprise on her face instantly turned into one of recognition. It had been twenty years sine she last saw him, but one does not easily forget the entity that nearly took over the world. She hastily wiped away her tears as she processed who exactly she was seeing.

“Bill Cipher? Wait, there’s no way you’re actually here. My uncles killed you! But why the hell am I dreaming about you all of a sudden?” she asked, more to herself than to him.

  
Bill unclenched a little in relief. He preferred the reaction of disbelief to fear or anger. He floated lower so he was eye to eye with her, and shrank down until his triangular form was no larger than her head, mindful not to come across as intimidating.

“Short answer, you’re dreaming me because I’m actually here. Despite your family’s best efforts, I’m not dead.”

He felt a flicker of surprise from her, followed by anger, but still no trace of fear. She pulled a hand out from her pile of sweaters and swatted at him. He dodged easily.

“I don’t care if you’re really here or not. Leave me alone!” She snapped, fresh tears welling in her eyes. Bill held up his hands in a gesture of submission, though he had no intention of leaving her alone.

“Hey, hey , hey, don’t be that way, Kid! I get that you aren’t glad to see me, and I totally get why, but I assure you I’m not trying to pull anything here.”

“Yeah? Then what do you want? I don’t want to see anyone right now, especially not _you_.” She buried her face in the pile of sweaters, her long brown hair tumbling down over her shoulders. Bill’s innate demon nature was actually pleased to have her in such a defeated state, because it meant he would have an easy way in. But another part of him—a part that hadn’t properly manifested just yet— was disappointed that he hadn’t been greeted with a bold, defiant smile and the pleasure and excitement of seeing a key figure from her childhood again.

“Just hear me out, okay? From one trapped agent of chaos to another,” he entreated, perhaps sounding a little more desperate than he intended, though it appeared to have the desired effect. Shooting Star was still for a moment. Then she slowly lifted her head to look at him again, comprehension now mingling with the suspicion and sadness on her face. She was really listening now. Bill paused briefly as he laid out the vague plans he had for her in his mind. He wanted her to trust him, and that would require at least some honesty on his part, especially since he was pretty sure wasn’t going to use her trust against her…pretty sure. Keeping these things in mind, he pressed forward.

“So yeah, I survived, but ever since your uncles tried to erase me, I’ve been trapped here in the Mindscape. I can’t go back to where I came from, and I can’t come back to your world. I’ve got nothing to do and no one to talk to, except for you humans, by way of your dreams, like before. But after the way you defeated me, I spent years thinking I would rather die for real than talk to another human ever again. I underestimated you, and really paid for it, and it was beyond humiliating.”

Bill flickered red briefly, remembering the magnitude of the rage he had felt from that humiliation. He noticed a faint smile playing across Shooting Star’s lips as she was reminded of the pride she had felt over his defeat.

“But eventually, I just got too bored. I decided to look in on you after all. I’ve been watching you for a while now, Shooting Star, and wow, how the mighty has fallen.”

She frowned at him. “I don’t need you to tell me that. Did you come here just to kick me while I was down?” 

Bill rolled his eye and folded his arms across his front. “Why would I wanna do that? In case I didn’t make this clear, I’m down too. I just wanna talk.”

“Why?”

“I _told_ you, I’m bored.”

“Yeah, but why me? Why now? You could talk to literally anyone in the world. Why would you choose to talk to someone who was directly responsible for your defeat? Wouldn’t it be easier to talk to someone who doesn’t know who you are?” Shooting Star demanded, completely dissatisfied with his non-explanation. Bill sighed. He was going to have to give her much more up front than he thought.

“Okay, look, Kid, you may not believe this—and to be fair, I’ve given you plenty of reasons not to—but I _did_ always like you. I’ve never seen another human embody chaos quite like you. I always thought I could relate to you on some level, like you felt that reality never quite met your expectations, just like me. I mean, didn’t you ever wonder why I put you in a bubble that gave you everything you ever wanted?”

Shooting Star, laughed humorlessly at that question. “I didn’t have to wonder. That was a prison. You only put me there to get me out of the way and keep the zodiac prophecy from coming true.”

Bill waved a finger at her. “Yeah, but I _could_ have just killed you, or turned you to stone and added you to my human throne. There are plenty of ways I could have gotten rid of you without putting you in that bubble.”

Shooting Star was silent because she realized that was totally true. Bill found it amusing and bewildering that no one—neither the humans nor his henchmaniacs—had thought to question his actions when he imprisoned her in that bubble. He continued his line of reasoning.

“Maybe I wanted to remove you as a threat without getting rid of you. Maybe I wanted to keep you somewhere secure while I saw to the business of taking over your dimension. And then, when I was ready, I could drop in on you. Play with you. Figure you out.”

“Maybe?” Shooting Star echoed, puzzled, “Don’t you know for sure what you were thinking?”

“I wasn’t really thinking that much into it at the time,’ Bill answered honestly, “And since no one questioned me, I didn’t really have to. I was a little preoccupied with other things. But I think that’s what I would have done eventually, once I was in complete control. Of course, none of that happened, because Pine Tree freed you, and I had to take some drastic actions to get what I wanted.”

“‘Drastic’ as in you nearly _killed_ me,” Shooting Star supplied bitterly.

“Come on, that was a bluff,” Bill countered without missing a beat, “I knew your uncles would cave before anything actually happened to you.”

Shooting Star was the picture of skepticism as she quirked a brow. She had certainly come a long way from the little girl he had so easily manipulated into giving him the rift. Of course, even then, he’d needed a disguise to do that. Pine Tree had been so much easier to manipulate.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t have?” she asked.

Bill’s only answer to that was a shrug as he closed his eye and rotated away from her. He remembered how desperate and livid he had been. Maybe in the heat of that moment, he _would_ have killed her. Demons by nature are ruled by emotion, and he had been angry enough to kill. Now, though, he was so glad that he had not. He didn’t want to outright lie to her and opted for evasion.

“Anyhow, you know how it all went down. And my point stands. I _did_ always like you.”

“Okay, let’s say I believe all that,” Shooting Star said, “Why now?”

Reading her thoughts, Bill noted with satisfaction that she was actually considering the possibility that he meant her no harm, but she was still suspicious. He floated towards her again and landed on the forest floor beside her, materializing his cane and leaning on it with both hands.

“Like you said, something’s gotta give. You’re at your breaking point, Kid. You need a shakeup. So do I. And I’ve always had a talent for shakeups.”

Shooting Star was quiet for a moment as she thought through everything he had said. Then, she got to her feet, emerging from her pile of sweaters. Bill was surprised to see that she was not wearing the clothes she had been wearing in the waking world that day. She was now clad in the iconic skirt and shooting star sweater she had been wearing during her time in his prison bubble.. He couldn’t help but admire the way it clung to her adult figure, no longer swallowing her whole as it had when she was a child, and he was briefly overwhelmed by the desire for her that he was determined to keep under wraps until the time was right. He floated up until he was eye-level with her once more, increasing his size a little bit.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” she said, planting her hands on her hips and leveling a calm gaze at Bill, “You’re trapped in the Mindscape with no way to get back to your dimension _or_ enter mine, but you can still see into the third dimension and interact with humans when they are asleep, which is what you’re doing right now. You’ve been watching me because you claim to like me, and you finally decided to talk to me because you’re bored and because I’m having a breakdown. Is that it?”

“That’s pretty much it,” said Bill.

“This isn’t some scheme to possess my body or break out and try to take over the world again?”

_This is a scheme to possess your body, but not in the way you think_ , Bill thought to himself with amusement. But he kept that thought to himself and answered, striking as sincere a tone as he could muster.

“Believe it or not, I think I might have gotten that global domination thing out of my system. I still like the idea of liberation, but now I’m thinking on a smaller scale. I won’t lie… I’d _love_ to get out of here, and if I knew how, I would. But for now, I’m trapped and you’re trapped. We’re both creatures of chaos who are trapped, alone, and bored. Talking to you seems like the thing to do. I don’t know what’ll come of it, but who knows. Maybe we’ll end up helping each other.”

Shooting Star tilted her head as she regarded him, arms folded across her chest. She still did not trust him, but there was a glimmer in her brown eyes that had not been present when Bill first spoke to her. She was daring to hope that he really was the shakeup she was looking for.

“Well, okay. I guess I’ve got nothing to lose,” she conceded, “but you better not make me regret this, Bill Cipher.”

“I have no plans to do so at present, “he assured her. He didn’t let on, but he was ecstatic that she was willing to talk to him. For now, though, it would be best to back off and let her process this encounter. He tipped his hat and gave her a little mid-air bow. “Well then, I’ll leave you to your dreams for now, but I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow. We’ll play it by ear. And Kid? Buck up. This might be the start of something interesting.”

With that, he faded out of sight, leaving his little human dreamer standing alone in her rainbow forest, bemused and hopeful, her animosity toward him momentarily forgotten.

As soon as Bill was alone in the void again, he did a loop de loop. He’d made contact with Shooting. Star, and it had gone pretty damn well, all things considered! She had every reason to hate and distrust him, but she was still giving him a chance. He mused over how strange this was. It was strange that an ancient demon like himself was fixating so intensely on a single human being. It was strange that she gave him a vague sense of hope and direction. It was strange that he wanted her. It was strange that he had no master plan beyond ingratiating himself with her, getting close to her, seducing her.

And it was especially strange that not even global domination sounded as exciting as this current goal. But if there was anything Bill truly loved, it was strangeness.

This was going to be very interesting, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be up soon. Mabel's POV will get a turn.


	3. Not a Deal, but a Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel and Bill's first night together.

Mabel Pines opened her eyes to morning sunlight pouring in through her bedroom window. She was still sitting in her closet buried up to her neck in old sweaters. The despair that had put her there was gone, replaced by total bewilderment. Did that really just happen? Did Bill Cipher really just show up in her dreams alive and well after twenty years, acting like he hadn’t almost killed her the last time she saw him?

Memories from that summer in Gravity Falls came flooding back to her. The summer of her and Dipper’s thirteenth birthday. It had been an incredible time in her life, filled with adventure, discovery, and growth. It had also been fraught with terrible danger, thanks to the very demon who had appeared to her last night.

She had wanted a shakeup in her life, true, but this was the last thing in the world she had expected to happen.

Mabel replayed the details of the lucid dream in her mind, remembering Bill’s mannerisms, the things he’d said. She had to admit that there seemed to be something very different about him. If she hadn’t known any better, she would think that he pitied her. He said he was bored and wanted to talk to her. Did that mean he wanted to make friends? There had to be more to it than that. Something he wasn’t telling her. Exactly _how_ did he survive, anyway? If what he said was true, and he really was trapped in a sort of limbo in the Mindscape, how did that happen? And why?

Mabel wasn’t naive or an idiot. She knew Bill was dangerous and untrustworthy. All the same, she realized that she was actually glad that he had appeared to her out of the blue like this. He had been right about one thing. This might be the start of something interesting. Finally, she had something to look forward to that would break up the never-ending drudgery and monotony that was slowly driving her insane.

So Mabel emerged from her pile of sweaters, stretching out the crick in her neck from sleeping sitting up all night. She went about her day (which happened to be her day off, thankfully), all the while thinking about Bill Cipher and the promise that he would come back tonight.

She thought about the fact that he said he had been watching her, wondering about that as she folded her laundry. She wondered what he had seen, how long had he watched her, and how often. Was he watching her now? The notion made her feel somewhat self-conscious. What exactly did he find so interesting about her? Was it that exciting to watch someone do their laundry?

Then it hit her. He could see her dreams, too. If he could invade her dreams, he could definitely see them.

Holy shit.

Mabel blushed at the implications of this. It was true that her waking life was a prison of mundane, soul-crushing routine, but her dream life was an entirely different story. It was the one place where her true nature was free to run wild. Her creativity and manic energy. Her chaos. It was also where she was able to live out her most outrageous sexual fantasies. Fantastical erotic exploits that followed her into her waking life every morning, fueling frantic masturbation sessions and dancing in her daydreams as she endured the endless tedium of work and routine.

No one knew about this inner life of hers. She never told her ex-husband, knowing he had no interest or appetite for such weirdness. She never even told Dipper. While he had always accepted her for who she was, this just wasn’t the sort of thing one discussed with their brother.

So the idea that Bill Cipher might be privy to something so profoundly personal filled Mabel with a tempestuous blend of outrage, embarrassment, and… something else. An emotion she couldn’t quite put a name to, something not entirely unpleasant. She had to admit that it was kind of nice to know that she was not so utterly alone with her true nature as she had thought.

Just…why did it have to be _Bill_? But then, who else could it have been?

Mabel carried out the rest of her day—grocery shopping, paying some bills, knitting while she watched TV—while these trains of thoughts rolled around in her head. Now, she was especially anxious to confront Bill with the day’s epiphanies and get on with this game that he seemed so eager to play. He had blindsided her with his sudden appearance last night, intruding upon her misery like an obnoxious yellow ghost from her distant past. But now, she was ready for him.

***

Finally, it was time.

Mabel was almost too excited to sleep as she slipped into her normal sleeping attire of an oversized tee shirt and crawled into bed. She was reminded of how it had felt going to bed the night before Christmas as a child. This was a vastly different scenario, and yet the anticipation somehow felt very similar.

As she lay there waiting for drowsiness to overtake her, she thought suddenly of Dipper, and her great uncles Stan and Ford, the only members of her family who knew anything about Bill Cipher.

Dipper—or Mason as he now preferred to be called by everyone except Mabel—was on a very different path from that of his sister. His life had pretty much worked out exactly as he had hoped. He was now a professor of archeology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. He taught classes to support himself and utilized his spare time by maintaining and cataloguing Great Uncle Ford’s findings and adventures over the years. He and Mabel didn’t see much of each other since he lived in a different state, but they still talked on a regular basis. She didn’t begrudge him his happiness, and didn’t want him to worry about her, so she always did her best to put on a cheerful face for him during video chats.

Great Uncle Ford and “Grunkle” Stan had spent many wonderful years togetheradventuring abroad and making up for lost time before finally returning to Gravity Falls to live out the rest of their days. Stan had passed away in his sleep several years ago. He hadn’t managed his health over the years quite as well as Ford, who was still alive and well at the age of eighty-nine.

It occurred to Mabel that maybe she should let Dipper and Ford in on what was going on with Bill. They would definitely want to know. But…no…not yet. She would tell them soon. But for now, she wanted to get a better sense of what Bill was up to. There really _did_ seem to be something different about him, and she knew her suspicious and paranoid brother and uncle would immediately assume the worst and not give her a chance to see this through the way she wanted to.

Mabel continued to lay there in the dark for a long time before finally drifting off. The moment she was asleep, she was instantly back in her technicolor dream forest, a place of comfort that resembled her fond memories of Gravity Falls. It was a common setting for her dreams, but it was unusual for her to find herself here so soon after falling asleep, and completely lucid, to boot. It was just like the previous night. No doubt, Bill Cipher played a role in this.

Just as that thought crossed Mabel’s mind, she heard a familiar sharp voice, behind and above her.

“Yeesh, Kid, it’s about time! I thought you’d never fall asleep!”

Mabel spun around and looked up to see the luminous triangular demon floating down to her from the tree tops, spinning his cane in one hand, tipping his hat to her with the other.

“Yeah? Well, forgive me if the idea of seeing you tonight didn’t strike me as relaxing,” she shot back, folding her arms across her chest as she watched him descend, “This whole thing is too weird.”

“It really is,” Bill agreed, “But weird is my thing. It’s your thing too. So how’s about we just roll with it?” He hovered eye-level with her and pressed a finger into her forehead, “Anyway, I see that you already _are_ rolling with it. Your mind is sharp, full of questions, ready for a challenge. Last night it was so foggy with despair, I could barely see anything at all in there.”

“So you _can_ read my thoughts!” Mabel said, remembering his demonstration of this power twenty years ago when he’d made her dream boys appear in Grunkle Stan’s mind.

“As long as you’re in the Mindscape, I can. Your emotional state too. And your memories. But when you’re awake, all I can do is watch.”

“Do you…watch me often?”

“Pretty much all the time.”

Mabel blanched at that. She recalled earlier in the day when she’d wondered if he was watching her while she folded her laundry. Apparently he was.

“Doesn’t that get kind of boring?”

  
Bill shrugged and closed his eye. “It’s preferable to the void I’ve been trapped in since Weirdmageddon, which should give you some idea of how desperately bored I’ve been. He opened his eye and met her gaze with what would have been a grin if he had a mouth. “Anyway, it’s worth it when you go to sleep and come here. That’s when you _really_ get interesting.”

He gestured at various spots around them. Everywhere he pointed, colorful characters and things appeared. Anthropomorphic stars, flying rainbows, winged unicorns…all familiar imagery in Mabel’s nightly adventures. And then, beautiful men of every color of the rainbow appeared, some of them magical creature hybrids, some with wings, some half animal. A few beautiful women too. Mabel blushed furiously at the arrival of these particular figments. They were all regulars in her most erotic dreams. Proof that Bill had seen everything.

“Look at all this!” he exclaimed with genuine admiration, seemingly oblivious to her embarrassment, “I could scarcely do better, myself! It’s too bad that reality can’t be helmed by an imagination like yours, Shooting Star.”

Mabel stared at him in amazement. Did he really mean it? Never in her life had she heard such enthusiasm for what was basically a representation of her truest self, and she was touched.

“Yeah? Well, I have to admit that your version of reality was imaginative, too. The problem was that you didn’t care how much you were hurting everyone,” she said, giving him a sardonic half-smile.

“I know, I _know_ ,” Bill groused, “Believe me, I’m paying dearly for it now.”

“So when you said you were trapped in the Mindscape, does that mean you’re being punished?”

He sullenly held her gaze.

“By whom?”

Bill snapped his fingers, and all the various examples of Mabel’s dream creations disappeared.

“It’s complicated.”

  
“Tell me,” Mabel insisted.

The demon heaved a dramatic sigh and floated away into her colorful woods, and for a second, she thought he was going to just leave. But then he turned and beckoned her. She smiled and followed him.

As they wandered through Mabel’s forest dreamscape, Bill told her all about how he had escaped destruction in her Grunkle Stan’s mind. How he had invoked an ancient and powerful magic as a plea for mercy to a benevolent, godlike entity known as Axolotl. Mabel wasn’t sure why, but this all seemed very familiar to her. Bill explained that this entity was far older and far more powerful than he was, and that he had spent most of his existence resenting it and rebelling against its omnipotence. In spite of that, Axolotl had responded to his plea and spared him.

Mabel speculated with amusement that this entity viewed Bill much as a patient mother views her delinquent child. And this situation that Bill now found himself in was an extended time-out of sorts. She imagined him sitting on a little stool facing the corner, unable to get up, or escape into the wall itself, or even turn around and leave. He could only speak to those in the room behind him. Namely, the human beings in their respective dreamscapes.

The image in her mind of this bad little triangle made her laugh out loud, and Bill turned to her in surprise. He looked at her quizzically for a moment (looking into her mind, she suspected) before crossing his arms across his front and scowling.

“Well, I’m glad you find this all so hilarious,” he snapped. This made Mabel laugh even harder.

“Maaaan, you really got what you deserved,” she chortled, “The very _least_ of what you deserved. It’s lucky for you that this Axolotl is so benevolent and forgiving.”

“It’s lucky for _you_ that I’m not still mad about the spray paint in the eye,” Bill shot back, but there was a gleam in his eye, and Mabel couldn’t stop herself from giving him a broad smile.

“You deserved _that_ , too. But getting back to your present situation, you know time-outs don’t last forever. They end when the parent feels that a lesson has been learned, or when they decide that the kid has had enough time to think about what they did. Maybe the same is true for you.”

“The thought had crossed my mind. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that frilly know-it-all wants from me.”

“Well, you have all the time in the world to figure it out. In the meantime, we can keep each other company, like you said. But you know what? I think you might actually be on the right track,” Mabel said cheerfully.

Bill cast her a sidelong glance. “Yeah? How do you figure?”

“Well, assuming that you’ve told me the truth about everything, consider this. You’ve had two full conversations with me without doing or saying anything cruel or evil. No threats, no insults, no bargaining, or mind games. This is only the first night of…whatever this is, but I can already tell that there’s something different about you.”

Bill gave a non-committal “huh” in response. This all bode well for him as far as Mabel was concerned, but she suspected that he didn’t care to be analyzed like this, even if he _did_ ask.

“ _Good_ different,” she assured him, but added with a sly grin, “Even if you _do_ still creep on humans and haunt our dreams like the same old Bill.”

The triangular demon grew until he was nearly twice Mabel’s size. He began to float upward, gesturing at Mabel with one black hand, and she yelped in surprise as she was lifted into the air after him.

“Hey, it’s not _my_ fault that you’re the most interesting thing ever,” he said, “Now what say we have some fun?”

He flew them higher and higher, above the rainbow canopy of the forest, and up into the twilight sky, spiraling Mabel around him with a swirl of his finger. As crazy as Mabel’s dreams were, she rarely flew in them for some reason. She was immediately caught up in the joy and exhilaration of soaring high above her colorful dreamscape. It was far more expansive than she had ever realized, though she recognized everything she could see. Neon cities, floating islands, meadows adorned with giant flowers, glittering mountains, an ocean filled with as many shining stars as the sky all around them. Some of it stemmed from real memories. Some of it came entirely from her fantasies, created from her fears, hopes, and desires in equal measure.

“I’ve seen my share of dreamscapes, Shooting Star. Most of them aren’t even a fraction of the size and complexity of yours,” Bill spoke up, seemingly commenting on her train of thoughts. She turned to look at him and was only a little surprised to find him not looking at the world below them, but watching her intently. He went on, “It’s a shame that I can only be here when you are. My prison doesn’t feel like a prison at all when I’m here.”

There was a wistful longing in his voice, something Mabel had never heard from him before. She was once again struck by the strange intimacy of this whole thing. That her inner world had apparently become a haven of sorts to this once-malevolent creature who had nearly ended her existence with a snap of his fingers.

“That’s how I feel about this place, too,” she murmured, suddenly distracted by the intensity in Bill’s gaze.

Strange how it almost looked like…hunger.

It was in that moment that Mabel became painfully aware of the fact that she was still clad in the oversized tee shirt she had worn to bed…and nothing else. She grabbed the bottom of the shirt that was flapping wildly about in the wind and tugged it down over her bare thighs, all the while thinking frantically, _He couldn’t possibly…there’s no way!_

But then he looked away from her, turning his attention to the horizon before them, and Mabel quickly pushed down that insane notion. She was absolutely certain that he had _some_ sort of need for her. Her dreamscape. Even her companionship. But she had no real reason to think it went as far as…well… _that_.

She made an effort to shift her focus elsewhere—Flying! Flying is amazing!—in case he was reading her mind now. But the seed of that notion had been planted in her head, and she knew that she would be revisiting it in the days and weeks to come when she was awake and safely out of reach of Bill’s mind-reading. For now, though, she was still getting acquainted with the idea that an actual friendship with Bill was possible, let alone anything beyond that.

It wasn’t difficult to focus on the flying again, especially when Bill suddenly sent her diving and shooting upward in rapid succession. Her stomach lurched to her throat like when she rode rollercoasters as a kid, and she shrieked with laughter.

“You think too much, Kid,” Bill chided her, “You have plenty of time to do that when you’re awake.”

Yeah, he had definitely been in her head again. Despite his efforts to distract her with the thrill of flight, Mabel felt a twinge of irritation.

“Maybe if you spent less time snooping around in my head, you wouldn’t be so concerned with how much or how little I’m thinking,” she said, “I’m beginning to feel like you have a bit of an unfair advantage here with all this mind-reading.”

Bill rotated around until he was floating on his back, one hand behind his “head” while the other hand maneuvered Mabel so that she was floating above him, looking down at him. His eye was half-lidded as he gazed up at her.

“Maybe so. To be fair, we _are_ hanging out in your mind space. You’re a veritable open book here. It’s pretty much impossible _not_ to read you. All the more reason for you to save all that thinking for when you’re awake and use your dream time to do whatever you want.”

“I’ll work on that. But in the meantime, how about we level the playing field,” Mabel said, “I want you to promise me that if I ask you a question, you will always answer me, and answer me honestly.”

Bill’s eye went wide and darted away from her. “Whoa, you’re kind of putting me on the spot here,” he said, suddenly flustered.

Mabel smiled, feeling that already, she was gaining some control over this situation. “Come on, Bill. Fair’s fair. I feel like I’m _constantly_ on the spot, knowing that you can see my thoughts and feelings whenever you want. Promise me.”

The demon stared at her for a long moment, and she knew he was in her mind again, likely sifting through her thoughts for the questions she might ask him. She poured her feelings of goodwill into the pile of questions her head. Her curiosity, her willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt, her belief that everyone deserved a second chance, and above all, her earnest desire to try and understand him.

After a moment, she thought, while giving him a wry smile, _Oh come on, you ridiculous triangle. It’s not that hard to make a promise like this to someone if you really want to be their friend._ Bill blinked at her. She laughed at his startled reaction (she could not remember the last time she had laughed this much in one night) and said aloud, “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t plan on asking a lot of those questions for a while.”

Bill actually unclenched somewhat at that, and Mabel couldn’t help but be intrigued about what he was so afraid of being forced to disclose. God, this was such a strange game they were playing. There was no experience in her thirty two years of life that she could look to for guidance on how to navigate through this. All she could do was come at it with courage, wit, and an open mind and heart.

“Okay, okay, fiiiine,” Bill finally agreed. He shrank until he was about the size of Mabel’s torso and brought them both to a stop so that they were suspended in midair, upright, facing one another. He held out his hand, now wreathed in blue flames. “You wanna shake on it or what?”

Mabel took his hand in both of hers and the blue flames were extinguished. Bill’s eye dropped to their hands briefly before returning to her face, his expression confused, but curious.

“This isn’t a deal, Bill. It’s a promise. I won’t have any way of knowing for sure that you’re keeping it, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt,” she told him, “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let my guard down. The moment I find out that you’re being dishonest with me, or mean any sort of harm at all, I won’t have anything more to do with you. I guess I can’t keep you out of my dreams, but you won’t be welcome, if my sentiment means anything at all.”

“Fair enough. Okay, Kid, you’ve got yourself a promise,” Bill replied quietly. His tone sounded pensive and solemn to Mabel, and she had a feeling that he really was being sincere, against all odds. She broke out into a huge smile.

“Thank you.” She patted his hand before letting it go. “In the meantime, if you wanna keep coming here and take me flying, I won’t have any objections!”

“Yeah, that’s the ticket!” Bill said, his voice returning to its sharp, chipper tone. He grew to twice Mabel’s size once more and sent her flying from one hand to the other like a volleyball until she was breathless with laughter.

With that, the two of them flew off to see what else they could get into for the remainder of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhhh... Grunkle Stan is dead in this story. It breaks my heart, but it's the only thing I would find believable twenty years into the future. But Ford would still be alive since Bill Cipher once said to him, "Don't have a heart attack, you're not ninety two yet!"


	4. Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel and Bill reflect on the first night and on each other.

When Shooting Star awakened, taking her miraculous dreamscape with her, Bill was left alone in the empty void of the Mindscape, absolutely floored by the way his first night with her had gone. In nearly every way, she had defied his expectations. He had assumed that it would take some time for her to warm up to him, yet by the end of the first night, they were already on friendly terms. He had expected to be in complete control of the exchange of information, bolstered by his ability to see into her mind, yet she had asserted herself immediately by setting some conditions to help level the playing field. And she had done so not with a deal, but with a promise, giving him the chance to stick to it by honor alone. He had underestimated both her kindness _and_ her intelligence.

On top of that, she was remarkably perceptive. He had not wanted her to know about the true nature of his interest in her…not yet! But it would seem that he was not so adept at hiding it, because she had caught on almost immediately. He could feel her shock and disbelief at the notion, but there had been no sign of revulsion.

Interesting…

Bill opened a window to the third dimension right away so he could watch Shooting Star wake up. He was anxious to see how she would be after her first night with him in her dreamscape. A soft smile played across her lips the moment her brown eyes opened. That was new. She sat up in bed and looked around, and though Bill could no longer read her mind, he was certain that she was wondering if he was watching her right now. But the smile on her face lingered, which pleased him to no end. In only one night, he had managed to pull her out of a pit of despair, and her delicious chaotic energy was blossoming once again. And how thrilling it had been to be so close to her.

Intoxicating…

As a creature of unimaginable age, a mere twenty years alone in the Mindscape had been a surprising test of Bill’s patience, despite its comparatively short duration in his long life. But now it seemed that biding his time with Shooting Star would be the most trying test of his patience yet.

He watched as she got up and went about her day. She was dreamy and distracted at work, but the smile she gave her customers was no longer forced and hollow. Several coworkers commented on her change of demeanor, though their observations were met with a shrug and a grin.

And evidently, the energy she was generating wasn’t attractive only to Bill. In the course of the day, two men and one woman chatted her up and tried to ask her out. They weren’t bad-looking either, as humans go. Bill watched—flooded with an emotion he didn’t quite recognize as jealousy—as Shooting star appeared to size them up, her brown eyes gleaming with potential interest. But then, she graciously turned down each of them, and Bill sagged with relief each time. He briefly considered paying those humans a visit that night and giving them a nightmare or two. But no… that would only take away from his time with Shooting Star, and her time in the dreamscape seemed so fleeting as it was.

_I’ll just give her such a good time, any human will be dull by comparison,_ he asserted.

And really, who could blame those humans for noticing her? Her energy was so potent and magnetic, Bill didn’t understand how _any_ human she met wouldn’t be irresistibly drawn to her. And—he realized as he gave it true consideration for the first time—Shooting Star was rather pretty in an unexpected sort of way. She was short, even by human female standards, and not slender, but rather voluptuous, with broad hips, generous thighs, and an equally generous bust. Her long hair and big eyes were an unremarkable brown, not anything that would make her stand out in a crowd.

But her _smile_ … that was another matter entirely. Several times now, she had directed that smile at Bill.It was that smile that made the energy within her external for all to see.

And it was that smile that elevated her from pretty to radiantly beautiful.

“You don’t know your own power, Kid,” Bill murmured, shuddering and glowing brightly as he was momentarily overwhelmed by his desire for her.

Particularly torturous about this whole thing was that he could do nothing at all to slake his lust on his own. When humans were suffering from unmet sexual desire, they could find momentary relief through self-pleasure. While Bill was perfectly capable of this act, it would do nothing to ease his frustration. His sexual desire began and ended with Shooting Star, wrapped up as it was with her entire package. She was solely responsible for awakening it in him after millions of years of disinterested celibacy, and only she would be able to give him any relief, should she ever be willing.

It made Bill frown when he truly considered just how much power this little human had over him. All throughout history, he had tricked, manipulated, and toyed with humans for his own amusement and benefit, including Shooting Star and her family. And now, she held a position over him that no human ever had before. And this, after suffering a humiliating defeat at her hands multiple times!

She could never know, he resolved, just how strong of a hold she had on him. It was more than his ego could bear, even after twenty years in this humbled state. Perhaps evenbecause of twenty years in this humbled state. He would find a way to work this, to have her, without letting on. Thanks to his carelessness, she already knew—or at least suspected—his attraction to her. But she didn’t need to know how all-consuming that attraction had become.

There was also the matter of the promise she had demanded he make to her, and the threat that she would cut him off if she ever found out he was lying to her. If she should ever start interrogating him about this, the compulsion to lie would be very strong. But… he realized he didn’t _want_ to lie. He wanted her trust. He wanted her so terribly, he was willing to do whatever it would take.

But fuck, did this sort of thing not come naturally to a demon.

  
  
He only hoped that she meant it when she assured him that she wasn’t going to ask him any of the questions he saw in her head any time soon.

Bill lay these thoughts aside for now and settled in to watch his Shooting Star finish out her day, basking in her smile and looking forward to seeing it directed at him once more.

“Hurry back to me, Kid,” he said aloud. Millions of years of life be damned, the few hours she was away from him were proving to be the longest wait he had ever endured.

***

Mabel awakened from her first night with Bill Cipher feeling as different from her bedtime last night as she had felt last night compared to the night before that. Despair had become guarded anticipation, which had become—for lack of a better term—joy.

She was absolutely certain that her initial hunch about Bill had been correct. He was different— _very_ different—from the cruel, megalomaniacal entity he had been twenty years ago. She wasn’t sure how someone so ancient could change so drastically in such a short amount of time, but somehow, he did.

He was still flippant and snarky, to be sure. But he had also proceeded to give her the most incredible time she’d had in recent memory. He’d expressed a deep admiration for her dream world, and seemed to go out of his way to ensure that she enjoyed herself.

Mabel had her suspicions that he was hiding something, but whatever it was didn’t feel malicious. She saw him now as a puzzle to solve, and a lost soul to help. She had such a weakness for people (and demons, apparently) in pain. She believed that anyone who caused harm to others was always in pain themselves. It had proven to be true with nearly all of the antagonists and aggressors she had known throughout her life. She was confident that it was no different for Bill. And now that he was imprisoned and in a _very_ humbled state, she might have a real shot at helping him.

He was making it very easy to _want_ to help him, actually. Turns out he was rather a delight to be around when he wasn’t being a totally evil jerk.

Mabel went through her day in a happy daydream while these and many other thoughts swirled around in her head. Her mood was colored not only by the wonderful night she had spent, and the promise of each night to come, but also by the knowledge that Bill was—by his own admission—watching her constantly. It was weird, and a little creepy. Par for the course for Bill, really. But she had to admit that there was something oddly exciting about it. If an ancient demon was able to find something interesting about her life, maybe her life wasn’t as boring as she thought.

It certainly wasn’t boring today, anyway. All through the work day, Mabel was inundated with smiles and compliments from customers and coworkers alike. Stranger yet, the customers were super flirty and a few went so far as asking her out! She hadn’t gotten that kind of attention since her college years when she was considerably more extroverted. She was flattered, perhaps even marginally interested, but currently, this thing with Bill was holding the monopoly on her attention and energy, for better or worse. All she really wanted was to return to her dreamscape and continue to figure him out (and fly again… god, did she want to fly again).

Mabel was relieved when work ended. It was the best day she’d had in a very long time, but now she had a chance to prepare herself for the night to come.

It was as she showered that evening that her thoughts strayed once more to that fleeting moment when she had been certain that Bill was looking at her with an expression of desire. Was it truly possible? It would explain an awful lot, she supposed. But… Bill was a non-corporeal dream entity… and a _triangle_. Was something like sexual desire even possible for him?

Mabel went still for a moment, her hands buried in her shampoo-foamy hair, and glanced around as she had countless times today. She looked down at her naked body, soapy and wet, and pondered. Bill watched her “pretty much all the time.” That would include moments like this. And moments even more private than this. Supposing that she was correct, and that hungry expression had been carnal lust (and not something far more sinister, like literal hunger), did it do anything for him to see her like this? Was the sexuality of an immortal demon anything at all like human sexuality? Was he essentially a trans-dimensional peeping tom, getting off by violating her privacy, leering at her bathing, her masturbation, and her erotic dreams? Or did he experience lust in an entirely different way? Or maybe it was a combination or both familiar and alien concepts? After all, human lust was often far more complex than a simple attraction to bodily beauty.

The more Mabel thought about it, the more she was filled with an intense curiosity about this bizarre subject. In more ways than one, she realized, when she felt the familiar stirrings of arousal pooling in her lower belly. She gasped and hastily resumed washing her hair. Clearly something about this whole thing was turning her on, but there was still so much she didn’t know. And as of right now, she was not the least bit ready to ask Bill about any of it.

Not yet.

And though she was presently aroused as hell, she resolved that she would not touch herself or engage in any sexual activity at all (not that she currently had any partners besides her colorful dream harem) until she had a better grasp of this entire situation.

Mabel blushed furiously, imagining Bill watching her in sexual situations, and blushed even harder when she imagined broaching the subject with him. And if she was reading his discomfort accurately when she had demanded he answer her every question honestly, he was in no hurry to talk about it either. The real trick would be trying not to think about it in the dreamscape, knowing he would see her thoughts if she did.

She finished her shower and dressed for bed. This time, she chose to wear panties and shorts along with her usual sleep shirt. There didn’t seem to be any consistency to the connection between her sleepwear and what she wore in the dreamscape. But if it made any difference at all, she did not want to meet Bill in such a vulnerable, half-naked state as she had the night before.

As Mabel was curling up in bed, she thought once more of her brother and great uncle, wondering yet again when she should bring them in on this. But something was still holding her back, especially now that she was starting to get a better idea of what was behind Bill’s motivations to interact with her. She knew Dipper and Ford would be dead set against her going any further with this thing if they knew what she was beginning to suspect. And now, more than ever, she was curious to see where this would go.

Tamping down the guilt she was beginning to feel over keeping such a huge secret from her family, Mabel closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come. Though she was excited to return to her dreamscape, it didn’t take nearly as long for her to fall asleep as it had the night before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been told by my partner that I "write like an introvert." Looking at this chapter, which takes place mostly inside the characters' heads, I'm inclined to agree!


	5. The Second Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uncomfortable pasts are touched upon.

Bill fidgeted impatiently as he waited for Shooting Star to fall asleep. The moment she was out, he pulled her consciousness into a lucid dream. This time, her dreamscape materialized into a lush, cozy, bioluminescent jungle that lit up the dusky twilight, matching the glow of his own triangular form.

“Interesting,” he murmured, for this dreamscape was not unfamiliar to him. In the time he had been spying on Shooting Star’s dreams, he had seen many of them, each corresponding to her current mood and emotional state. The colorful forest from the last two nights he deduced to be a place of comfort and security, which would explain Shooting Star appearing there during her breakdown, and again when she was apprehensive about meeting him the following night.

This jungle, on the other hand, manifested when she was in a feral, sexual state of mind. Many of her most erotic dreams took place here. Bill had looked on many times, basking in her wild, chaotic energy as she indulged in her desires, feeling that desire himself with increasing intensity. Of all the dreamscapes he had seen, this was the last one he’d expected to see tonight. He floated through the shimmering canopy, scanning the dense undergrowth for his little human dreamer, half-expecting to find her cavorting with her fanciful harem.

“Bill!”

He heard her voice, cheerful and friendly, and turned to see her peering at him through the parted bushes as if she had be in the process of looking for him, too. She was smiling, happy to see him. She wasn’t with her dream harem, but he could still feel a marked sexual energy coming off of her. It washed over him, mingling pleasantly with the warmth he felt when he saw her smile. He had yet to think too much on what it could mean, but it was getting to where the desire he’d felt for her for months was now always accompanied by that bewildering feeling of warmth.

“Hiya Shooting Star,” he greeted her, jovial and chipper, unable to downplay how pleased he was to see her, “I see you had a good day, but I also see that you’re especially glad to be back here.”

Shooting Star’s smile broadened, and she emerged the rest of the way from the bushes and came face to face with Bill as he floated over to meet her. “I won’t deny that.”

Emboldened and intrigued by her current emotional state, Bill ventured into a bit of experimental flirting, curious to see how she would react.

“The question is, are you glad to see your dreamscape again, or are you glad to see _me_?” he asked, twirling his cane and casting her a sly, sidelong glance. He felt a rapid succession of emotions flood through her. Shock, a tiny spike of heat (not dissimilar to the sexual energy that was already simmering in her since her arrival), embarrassment, and finally annoyance as she regained control of herself.

She poked him on the bowtie. “Lately, you and my dreamscape have been a package deal, so make of that what you will.”

“I make of it that you’re glad to see me,” Bill declared, poking her right back on her nose.

“You keep taking me flying and that might actually be true someday,” Shooting Star said, her annoyance melting into amusement.

Bill was bubbling over with satisfaction at this little exchange. Shooting Star had already become quite adept at controlling her thoughts in the dreamscape (no doubt letting them run rampant when she was awake and they were well out of his reach), but she had less control over her feelings, and they were painting an intriguing picture for him, indeed. She was happy, she was easily flustered, and she was buzzing with an intoxicating sexual energy for some mysterious reason. For all his show of ego, Bill couldn’t presume that he was the cause of that, though he knew for absolute certain that he was the cause of her sudden spike of happiness. For now, that was enough. In the meantime, he would enjoy her sexual energy as he continued to wonder at the source of it.

“Infinite possibilities and all you wanna do is fly,” he teased her as he lifted her into the air with a flick of his wrist. He was instantly rewarded with the joy and elation that surged through her and washed over him as if they were his own emotions. It was a new thing, experiencing another’s feelings like this. Bill had always been able to read the thoughts and feelings of others, but _never_ had they affected him like this. It was yet another reminder of the power this little mortal had over him.

“I’m a shooting star! Flying is what shooting stars do!” Shooting Star laughed.

She grabbed his hand before she was lifted out of his reach and pulled him up after her as if she were the one controlling the whole thing. Bill made his cane disappear and happily accompanied her into the sky, watching as the light of her sultry, glowing dream jungle played off her skin and sparkled in her eyes, making her appear almost as luminous as him.

_Beautiful_ , he thought distractedly.

Some time later, Bill and Shooting Star lounged on a tree branch in the canopy of the jungle. They had flown for quite some time before Shooting Star finally requested a break. She was reclined on the branch with her back against the trunk, sipping on an elaborate cocktail Bill had manifested for her. He floated in the air beside her, about the size of her torso, watching her intently. She was relaxed and serene, eyes closed, unaware of his current appraisal of her.

He took the opportunity to probe her mind once more, but he found no enlightening thoughts to speak of. She was basking in the pleasure of her present situation and not thinking about anything beyond vague, idle contemplations of wishing she could stay here forever. Bill shared that wish, impossible though it was.

But it was clear that if he wanted more out of her tonight, he was going to have to instigate some conversation, even if that raised the risk of her turning the tables and asking him some questions that he might not want to answer.

“So tell me about your husband,” he said suddenly.

Shooting Star’s eyes snapped open and she whipped her head in his direction, surprise and discomfort disrupting her idyll. “You know about him?”

Bill said nothing, his gaze steady and knowing.

“Oh, right. You’ve seen my memories.” She slumped back against the branch and took another sip of her cocktail. “Well, what do you want to know?”

Bill drifted into her line of vision. “I get why you left him, but what I don’t get is why you liked him in the first place. The Shooting Star I know creates insane fantasy worlds and fantastic dreamscapes that put the reality of most dimensions to shame. She cultivates exciting dream denizens and works through her innate chaos energy by fucking them.” He paused briefly when he felt a wave of shock rise up in her, though he wasn’t sure if it was because he was verbally acknowledging her sexual proclivities, or because this was the first time she had heard him say the word ‘fuck.’ He went on, “But what she doesn’t do is hook up with boring people. Why did you?”

Shooting Star watched him with sad eyes as he talked, her initial shock settling into shame and embarrassment. When he fell silent, awaiting her answer, her gaze fell to the drink in her hands.

“I was having a hard time. I was frustrated and lonely. Nothing was going the way I had hoped. Justin was nice to me,” she said softly, a ghost of a smile on her lips as memories of the more pleasant times flickered in her mind, “And he was cute. Obviously, that’s not enough to justify a marriage, but I was young and impulsive. He was never cruel or malicious, but he was just so… so _normal_. I never really felt comfortable being myself with him. The few times I let my guard down and he saw a glimpse of the real Mabel, I could tell how confused and put-off he was. How weird he realized I was. It hurt. I didn’t like who I was when I was with him. I’d already suffered a huge blow to my confidence from the way my sweaters had been received. But I guess I don’t have to tell you that I was the one who ultimately ended it because I was just so _bored_ with him.”

Bill could feel her guilt over that last sentiment, though he could scarcely comprehend feeling guilt over something like that. But then, he couldn’t really comprehend feeling guilt over much of anything. Despite all the new, strange things he had begun to feel very recently, and his overall shift in priorities and what he considered to be fun, he was still a demon. The only thing that even came close to troubling his conscience was the memory of nearly killing Shooting Star.

“You’re wasted on people like that, Kid. Human lives are _way_ too short for you to waste your time doing something that makes you miserable. Or worse, be anything less than what you are.” Bill leaned back, hands behind his “head,” eye closed, his tone casual and dismissive even if his words were the exact opposite.

“I know,” Shooting Star agreed, “as evidenced by the fact that I’m already thirty-two years old and have nothing to show for it but lost time and disappointment. But reality hasn’t been very receptive to the real me.”

“Yeah? Well, it could just be my imagination, but seems to me that all those people yesterday had the hots for you _because_ they got a peek at the real you,” Bill countered.

He could feel gratitude blossoming in her, and heard her think, _You’re being so kind_. He opened his eye to see her blushing and gracing him with a shy, appreciative smile. Again, he was struck by that bewildering spark of warmth in his own being at the sight of her expression.

“Maybe,”she mused, “But they only saw a glimpse. If they saw as much of me as you have, they might not be so keen.”

Her smile turned mischievous, and Bill felt another spike in her sexual energy, and oh god did he want her. The temptation was strong to proposition her right then and there, but still he hesitated. They had a nice rapport going here, but it still seemed too new and fragile to survive a sudden left turn like that. Not yet. Not yet.

He slipped into her mind once more and heard her think, _He looks like he wants to eat me again_. But there was no fear, no revulsion. Only amusement, fascination, and that incessant sexual energy that was becoming increasingly difficult for him to resist. He withdrew from her mind and frowned as he looked away, frustrated by his inability to conceal his want from her.

“Okay, _my_ turn to put _you_ on the spot,” Shooting Star announced as she tossed her drink away and clapped her hands together.

Bill stiffened and rotated slowly to face her again. Yeah, he had this coming. He saw a series of questions cycle through her mind as she studied him. _How old are you? What are you made of? How could someone as old as you become so much nicer in only twenty years? Am I right about you? Are you really attracted to me?_

But then, she asked, “So, why did you want to take over our dimension so badly, anyway? You said you don’t want to anymore, but I still don’t quite get what your motivations were to begin with. It seemed like you thought of it as a game, at least until you realized we actually had a chance at stopping you.”

Bill went slack with relief. Sure, it wasn’t the most comfortable of questions, but he would gladly take it over one or two of the questions she had considered asking.

“Well… there’s a lot wrapped up in that whole thing that I’m not too proud about in retrospect. I’d been in denial about some of it for a very long time.”

Shooting Star canted her head as she listened, her brown eyes bright with curiosity. “That’s something else I don’t get. How was twenty years enough time for you to gain all this perspective? I don’t know how old you are, but I do know that twenty years is nothing to you.”

Bill let out a hollow laugh. “Time is relative, Shooting Star. When you’re trapped and alone, twenty years feels like an eternity no matter _how_ old you are. Anyhow, before my imprisonment, I never had a reason to stop and think about anything. This was the first time in my life that I had nothing to do _but_ think, so that’s pretty much all I did until I finally figured out that talking to you would be preferable to hanging out by myself forever.”

He could feel the sympathy flooding through her as she tried to imagine how it must have felt to him. Once again, he was mystified by her endless capacity for kindness, even towards someone who had once tried to kill her. Kindness had never been something in which he had seen much value, but it was as integral a part of Shooting Star as her glorious chaotic energy, and he was beginning to realize that he liked that quality in her almost as much. Though he wondered if that sympathy would hold out for what he was about to tell her.

He pressed on, “A long time ago, I… I kind of destroyed my home dimension. I didn’t mean to. I was bored and miserable there. I only wanted to shake things up, make life a little more interesting, but it went way further than I intended. For eons, I told myself and everyone else that I had liberated my dimension. I said it for so long and so often that I got to believing it myself. It sounded much better that way, anyhow.”

Bill paused, risking a glance at shooting Star. She appeared merely pensive, and he could feel no shock or disgust mingling with the sad sympathy she was feeling for him.

“I hate to say it, but this all totally sounds like you… or at least the you from twenty years ago,” she observed softly.

Bill sighed and continued, “So after that, I escaped into the Nightmare Realm. I spent a few eons there, thrashing about, wreaking havoc, buddying up with other creatures of chaos. It was fun, but eventually I came to the realization that the Nightmare Realm was inherently unstable and destined to collapse in on itself if it stayed the way it was. I thought that fusing it with your dimension would be a win-win. It would have stabilized all that delicious chaos, _and_ it would have unchained your dimension from the boring laws of physics. And since I would have been the most powerful being in both realms, I could do whatever I wanted. Another win. But… we both know how it actually went down.”

“Wow,” said Shooting Star, “Well, at least now I have a better understanding of your motivations and what was going on with you. And the more I learn about you, the more amazed I am that Axolotl showed you the mercy it did.”

Bill glowered at her, ashamed and a bit resentful of her for her ability to make him feel that way. Even if she was right, it still wounded his pride to hear a human remind him (multiple times now) that he deserved far worse than he got. But then she smiled at him, and even more astounding, she took his hand in hers, and his bitterness evaporated instantly as he stared at her.

She went on, “But hey, the way I see it, if Axolotl saw even a hint of some redeeming quality in you, something worth giving a second chance, then there really must be something there.”

So even now, she was affording him kindness and sympathy, this magnetic and captivating little human.

Huh…

Bill was touched, and quite relieved that coming clean about his admittedly horrifying past had not lost him the one thing he had going for him, but he immediately succumbed to the compulsion to dismiss it with humor.

“For all you know, Axolotl is just a bad judge of character.”

Shooting Star just continued to smile softly at him, disarming him yet again. They gazed at each other wordlessly for a long moment. Just as Bill was beginning to think he should say something else, Shooting Star finally spoke up.

“You can ask me another uncomfortable question if you want…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow burn is sloooooow.


	6. Dynamic Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel confronts Bill on her suspicions, and receives a hell of a pay-off.

Bill and Mabel’s second night together in her dreamscape set the pattern for many nights to follow.

Each night, as soon as Mabel fell asleep, Bill would pull her into a lucid dream where they would pass the hours, talking, bantering, and exploring Mabel’s vast, colorful dreamscape. They would take turns asking each other questions, anything from the mundane to the most unusual inquiries. Then, too soon, morning would come, and Mabel had to return to the waking world where she would pass the hours in a daydream, as much inside her head as if she were asleep.

Waking life remained as dull and monotonous as ever, but Mabel no longer cared. She now had something wondrous to look forward to each night. Plus, her time away from Bill allowed her the chance to reflect on each interaction with him without having to worry about him spying on her thoughts and feelings (even though she was keenly aware that he was watching her each day.)

It was not escaping her attention that he was looking at her with increasing hunger, and she was becoming more and more certain that it was lust she was seeing in his intense gaze. The idea was becoming fascinating to her. Intriguing even. Thanks to two key factors.

One, she had against all odds come to truly like Bill. He was as caustic and flippant as ever, he had a biting sense of humor, and spoke frankly about the many awful things he had done over the years. Even so, Mabel could scarcely believe that this was the same demon who had possessed her brother, cruelly tricked her when she was despondent and vulnerable, and tried to kill her on multiple occasions. He was funny, friendly, and always happy to see her each night. He seemed to be making such an unrelenting effort to please her. It was getting to be where she almost felt like he was worshipping her. If he had been human, she would have found this creepy and off-putting. But coming from Bill, an unimaginably ancient supernatural entity, lavishing this kind of attention upon her, a mere mortal, it was enormously flattering to her. This was true for his constant voyeurism as well.

The other factor was that Mabel herself admittedly had a potent sex drive, and after several weeks, her self-imposed abstinence was starting to get to her. She had no doubt that Bill could feel it coming off of her in waves, and though she continued to notice his long, hungry looks, he never said a word about any of it. The discussion on the second night about her husband notwithstanding, their subsequent adventures and conversations remained as tame and innocent as if she were still twelve years old.

***

One night, about two months or so after Bill first appeared to her, Mabel finally decided that something had to give. Her curiosity and sheer horniness were driving her to distraction. She was going to lose it if she didn’t say something. She had no particular end game in mind, and no idea how or if this would change the dynamic between herself and Bill. But at this point, she felt comfortable enough with him as a friend to risk some potential awkwardness and see where this might go, if it went anywhere at all.

It was entirely possible that she had him pegged all wrong, and she was reading _way_ too much into that intense gaze of his. After all, Bill was almost all eye… it was difficult for him _not_ to appear intense. If that was the case, if he was asexual, and her private moments meant nothing in particular to him, at least then she could resume her self-gratification without feeling so self-conscious.

On the other hand, if her suspicions proved correct, she had a feeling that she would soon be learning a thing or two about how demon sexuality worked. And then, oh man, this whole thing would get a _lot_ more interesting.

Mabel lay in bed thinking about how to broach the subject. It shouldn’t be that complicated. She knew that Bill spent most of his time looking inside her head when she was in her dreamscape, so all she had to do was call the question to the forefront of her thoughts and he’d know right away what she had in store. He probably already knew this was about to happen anyway. Though she had gotten quite skilled at controlling her thoughts when she was with him, she lately found them straying onto this subject unbidden more and more each night as her sexual frustration began to mount.

Inspiration struck, and Mabel sat up and pulled off her night shirt, leaving her in nothing but a pair of sunshine yellow panties.

_There. Let’s see what kind of reaction this gets._

She lay back down, smiling, knowing that he was already watching.

A short time later, she was back in the luminous twilight of her glowing dream jungle. The last week or so, _all_ of her dreams had started here. She glanced down at herself, pleased to see that she had indeed appeared here wearing exactly what she was wearing when she went to sleep. She began to scan her surroundings for Bill, and found him before he said a word. He was floating in the canopy above her, descending slowly and deliberately, his eye fixed upon her with an almost predatory intensity. For the first time, he didn’t greet her or make with the friendly banter.

Mabel stared right back at him, her hip canted, her hands clasped behind her back, and a playful smile on her lips as she gave him a chance to probe her mind. After a moment, he blinked, and his expression did a complete 180, mellowing into one of cool disinterest.

“You know what I’m about to ask you,” she said.

Bill shrank until he was the size of her head and reclined into a lounging position midair, the picture of nonchalance.

“So go ahead,” he encouraged, his tone utterly casual.

Hm. Not quite the reaction Mabel had expected. It rattled her confidence a little, and she hesitated. Bill watched her closely, somehow appearing expectant and bored all at once, and she got the distinct impression that he was screwing with her. He may be her friend now, but Bill was still Bill.

_Don’t back down! You saw how he looked at you just now. And he promised he would answer direct questions honestly!_ she reminded herself, perfectly aware of the fact that he could see these thoughts, too.

Before she could lose her nerve, she blurted, “I can see the way you’ve been looking at me.”

“Is that so? And what do you think you see?”

“Lust. I think I see lust.”

It wouldn’t be until much later in the evening when Mabel would look back on this exchange and realize that she didn’t ask him a direct question, which is why he was able to deflect her probing without breaking his promise. She squirmed under his unwavering stare, feeling small and somewhat foolish in her state of undress.

“Hmmm,” Bill replied, “Are you sure you’re not projecting?” Before Mabel could say anything, he went on, “ _You’re_ the one giving all the crazy sex energy. You think I can’t feel that? What’s the deal, Kid?”

“Are you _serious_?” Mabel sputtered, her frustration boiling over to the point where she completely forgot her embarrassment, “You have an eye on me every moment of every day! You _know_ what the deal is! I’ve gone weeks without any kind of release!”

Bill looked away from her and closed his eye as he continued to recline in midair, “I _had_ noticed a change in your routine. So why the sudden self-deprivation? Like I said, human lives are too short to waste your time doing things that make you miserable.”

Mabel reminded herself that she shouldn’t expect any sort of human social decorum from an immortal demon from another dimension. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

“It… just felt weird doing something like that once I knew that you were watching. It’s not really the sort of thing humans get up to while their friends are watching.”

Bill actually laughed at that.”Heh, maybe not the humans _you_ know. But what’s the big deal? It’s not like I haven’t seen anything like that before. I see everything.”

“Are you saying that it doesn’t do anything for you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So… it _does_ do something for you?”

“Sure it does,” Bill said, his tone remaining casual and dismissive, “I’m a demon, Shooting Star. Demons by nature are well acquainted with any and all kinds of desire.”

Mabel didn’t say anything. She folded her arms across her bare breasts and glared at him. Though she was relieved to learn that she had not been imagining things, she was irritated by the way Bill had hijacked her interrogation. Considering how uneasy he had seemed about the subject, she should have expected his head games.

A pregnant silence hung between them as Bill continued to recline in midair with his eye closed, and Mabel stood there next to him, unsure of what to do or say now. Despite her frustration with him, she was positively buzzing with sexual energy. And despite what he had said, Bill’s apparent lack of interest was making her think that she should just tell him to go away so she could take care of herself.

But then, Bill opened his eye and trained his gaze upon her once more, giving her a long, considering look.

“You know…,” he drawled in a singsong voice, “I could help you out.”

“Help me out?”

“I could help you siphon off some of that pent-up energy.”

Mabel gaped. An outright offer? She had considered the possibility of this outcome, but she hadn’t honestly expected it, at least not so suddenly.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Her curiosity bounced back in an instant, her annoyance with him forgotten. The glowing jungle all around them pulsed brighter in response to her emotional state.

“You heard me,” Bill replied.

He grew until he was twice Mabel’s size and loomed over her in a way that filled her with aroused anticipation, though she still had no idea how this was even possible.

“I won’t bother denying that I’m interested,” she admitted, hearing the breathy edge in her own voice, “But how? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you _are_ a triangle. I’m not quite seeing the compatibility.”

“You should know by now how versatile I can be,” said Bill, sounding as casual as ever despite the intensity in his gaze, “For starters, just imagine how you think I would look if I were human.”

Of course. He could shape-shift. Mabel felt a little sheepish for not remembering that detail. She had only seen him do it twice. Once, when he had disguised himself as Soos in Grunkle Stan’s mind, and again when he had transformed into a monstrous creature and chased her and Dipper through the Fearamid. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to envision a human Bill in her mind’s eye. The image came to her with surprising ease, as if someone she had seen before, and not someone she was making up.

When she opened her eyes after a few moments, a wiry, angular, human man of indeterminate age stood before her. He appeared to be at least a head taller than her (admittedly not much of a feat considering her own petite stature), dressed in a long, form-fitting, yellow dress coat with tails, a white dress shirt, and a top hat, slacks, bowtie, shoes, and gloves; all of them black. His skin was pale with a slight golden tint to it. His hair, a golden blonde, was tousled and wavy, but not overly long. His eyes (two of them, Mabel noted) were unnaturally black and watching her intently. A grin spread across his newly formed lips at her reaction to his appearance.

“Not bad, eh Kid?”

It was strange to hear that familiar Bill voice coming out of an actual mouth. Mabel stared and stared, utterly captivated by him. He was… _beautiful_ … in a rather quirky sort of way. All sharp lines and angles, reminiscent of his triangular form. It was so perfectly him, and so _familiar_ , as if he had looked like this all along.

Bill looked down at himself, squaring his shoulders and adjusting the lapels of his coat.

“Not bad at all! I must say I’m impressed. I couldn’t have fashioned a more dapper human me if I tried. Clearly you’ve got a thing for snappy dressers.” His eyes met hers once more, sly and teasing. “Still having trouble seeing the compatibility?”

Mabel could scarcely muster the presence of mind to answer. The vague ember of arousal inside her had exploded into a dizzying, white-hot desire. She stepped closer to him and placed a hand on his chest, feeling the luxurious fabric of his coat against her palm. Despite her eagerness to go through with this, she wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. Thankfully, Bill had no intention of waiting around for her to figure it out. In one swift motion, he seized the hand she had placed on him and whipped her around so that she was facing away from him. Her breath caught when his lean form pressed flush against her back, gloved fingers closing around her shoulders with a noticeably restrained gentleness. He undulated against her ever so slightly, his voice dropping to a husky whisper as he brought his lips close to her ear.

“I can feel how much you want this, Shooting Star. It’s driving you crazy, and frankly, it’s starting to get to me, too.” His hands glided down her shoulders, her arms, and came to a rest at her generous hips. His grip tightened sharply as he pulled her back against his pelvis. She gasped at the unmistakable sensation of human male arousal straining in his slacks, pressing insistently into her backside. “So what are we waiting for?” he concluded.

One of his hands slid between Mabel’s legs, stroking a long finger down a path of moisture that had seeped through her panties. She tossed her head back against the solid warmth of his chest and dug her fingers into his thighs, bucking first into his hand and then back into his pelvis, drawing a barely contained hiss out of him.

“Oh my god, Bill,” she gasped.

“That is correct,” was his lofty response.

Ugh, the smug jerk. And yet, that remark nearly made her come on the spot, despite her annoyance with his arrogance. She had neither the lucidity nor the time to offer a snarky comeback when he abruptly shoved her forward. She shrieked, anticipating a hard landing on the jungle floor, but their surroundings changed as she fell, and she landed painlessly on her belly on a bed of soft cloud, suddenly bereft of her panties. She felt the silky warmth of Bill’s fully-clothed body enveloping her from tip to toe moments later as he settled over her, felt his cock, freed of his slacks, slipping between her thighs and entering her in one smooth motion. Clearly, Bill wasn’t one for foreplay, but to be fair, Mabel hardly needed it, slick with arousal and supremely turned on by his sudden forcefulness.

“Oh my _god_ ,” she choked out again at the moment of penetration, unable to stop herself. They might be in her dreamscape, but Bill was real. As real as anyone she had been with when she was awake. The solid weight of his beautiful human body on her own and the thick warmth of his cock within her instantly put to shame the countless nights she had spent with her fanciful harem of dream figments. They couldn't even compare to this.

She expected another smug remark from him, but what she heard was a sharp gasp that sounded almost like surprise followed by an elated groan, and wondered about that through her own pleasure. How could such an ancient being be surprised by anything? He read the question in her mind before she had a chance to voice it.

“You… you have _no_ idea how long it’s been since I’ve done this… in _any_ dimension,” he murmured into her long, brown hair, rocking languidly into her as if testing the waters of this long-forgone act, “Now I’m wondering how I could ever have prioritized absolute power. I always did have a habit of overlooking the simple pleasures…” He trailed off in a sigh, sounding as if he had gotten lost in the sensation.

Mabel was beginning to suspect that there was much more going on here than Bill doing her a friendly favor. Despite his appearing only casually interested before, there was no mistaking his genuine rapture now. Everything about his behavior suggested that he was in complete thrall of her. And despite the fact that Mabel was prone, naked,pinned, and being taken by a powerful, inconceivably ancient demon, reeling in the pleasure he was giving her, she felt strangely powerful.

A gloved hand worked itself beneath her body and pressed sharply into her clitoris, interrupting her train of thought with a spasm of overstimulation. Bill laughed, and she knew he had been reading her mind again.

“Can’t you give the mind reading a rest for once?” She tried to sound assertive, but her demand came out as a strained whimper.

“You’re an open book here, remember? I’ll stop reading when you stop thinking,” Bill replied as he continued to grind his hips into her with agonizing deliberation and circled her clitoris with his fingers. Mabel rolled her hips back to match his thrusts perfectly, dragging a shameless moan out of him.

“Keep it up and I might start asking questions again,” she shot right back. Count on Bill to turn sex into a power struggle. And yet, something about it was setting her alight in a way she had never experienced before. 

Bill did not say anything this time, but he wrapped his free arm around her collar bone and bent his head until his cheek rested against hers. She could feel the smile on his face as he at last began to fuck her with total abandon. _God_ , yes... _God_ , how she'd needed this. She reached up and caressed his face before burying her fingersin his waves of golden hair, shivering at his growl of approval.

Coherent thought abandoned her altogether as her orgasm crashed over her. She arched back, yelling out so loudly, it made Bill’s smile burst into a laugh against her cheek. But his laughter was clearly from delight, not derision, because shortly after he was coming too, shouting and gasping his own release as he hammered into her.

All was still for a time afterward. Mabel lay there in that cloudy bed glowing with a sublime happiness she had not experienced in ages. She felt so alive, and so powerful. And she had Bill Cipher—destroyer of dimensions, terror of her childhood—to thank for it. Bill… he had been uncharacteristically silent in the minutes following their shared climax, still inside her and all around her (and most likely in her head, too). She could hear his panting breaths beginning to quiet. Finally, curiosity got the better of her and she rolled over onto her back beneath him so she could look at him properly, disengaging their bodies in the process.

The expression on his beguiling human face was solemn as he peered down at her. His top hat had tumbled off his head at some point during their frantic encounter, and a lock of golden hair had spilled down, obscuring one of his eyes. Mabel was reminded of the one-eyed nature of his true form. Still, he didn’t say anything, just continued to hold her gaze with an inscrutable intensity.

“I think…,” Mabel said softly and slowly, searching his face with her eyes, “…that you really wanted this. All along… this is what you wanted… isn’t it?”

Bill’s inscrutable expression transformed into that of a deer in the headlights. His eyes went wide, and his lips parted as if to answer her.She had asked him a direct question, after all. But before he could say a word, she took his face in her hands and pulled him toward her, craning her neck to capture his lips in a tender kiss. His entire body stiffened, and for a brief moment, she was sure he was going to pull away. But then she felt him relax into her. Propping himself up on his elbows, he caressed the fingertips of one gloved hand over her cheek and deepened the kiss with a hunger Mabel found surprising, given the staggering release of sexual tension they had shared a short time ago. He tasted smoky, spicy, _dangerous_. Unlike any human she had ever kissed. Despite his current appearance, he _wasn’t_ human, Mabel reminded herself. Did all demons taste like this, or just Bill? He kissed her with such heat that arousal was beginning to pool in her lower belly once more.

Bill pulled out of the kiss abruptly, leaving them both panting and breathless. There was no mistaking the lust smoldering in his black eyes as they burned into hers. The cool, snarky, in-control facade—on which he’d had a tenuous hold to begin with—had been dropped.

Mabel tossed her arms around his neck and dragged him into a hug with an exuberance reminiscent of her twelve-year-old self who had gone toe to toe with him twenty years ago.

“Ridiculous triangle,” she whispered affectionately, “I could tell, almost from the beginning! If you were trying to hide it, you failed miserably… even tonight. _Especially_ tonight.”

  
  
Bill sat upright, pulling Mabel up with him so her nude form was now perched on his lap, and returned her embrace, his arms encircling her firmly, almost possessively. She took a moment to look around and saw that their bed of cloud was drifting in a gorgeous twilight sky bedazzled with stars of every color and a yellow crescent moon… Mabel’s favorite type of moon. It seemed that Bill had actually made an effort at creating a romantic setting, despite the savage abruptness of the sex. She hadn’t had a chance to appreciate the gesture until now.

“And yet, you didn’t call me on it for a long time,” Bill said, his voice uncharacteristically low and hoarse, “Even though I was obligated to answer your questions honestly.”

Mabel nuzzled into his hair, which happened to smell as smoky as he tasted, “I just wasn’t ready to have that conversation until now… now that I know you’re my friend, weird head games notwithstanding.”

“And now that you were so sexually frustrated, you would do just about anything to alleviate it,” Bill added. Mabel grinned. Yeah, of course he had known about that.

“That too,” she admitted, “but speaking of your weird head games, I would have saved myself a lot of uncertainty and hassle tonight if I had just asked you a direct question… like I’m about do do right now.”

She felt Bill go stiff again and pulled back so she could see his face, brushing his golden shock of hair away from his eye. He looked tense and embarrassed, his mouth drawn into a tight line, probably because he could already see the question in her mind. She asked it anyway, her voice kind and firm, as if she were speaking to a misbehaving child… or a bad little triangle.

“Why is it that you tried to make me think you didn’t want me that much, even after I had the nerve to bring it up? Why make me second-guess myself like that? Were you fucking with me just for the fun of it?”

Bill—who had averted his eyes during this interrogation like the bad little triangle he was—snapped his gaze back to hers at that final question.

“No!” he yelled, nearly cutting her off in his haste to answer, then repeated a more quiet and definitive, “No.”

He looked so pained and earnest, Mabel might have believed him even if he hadn’t made a promise to answer every direct question truthfully.

“Why, then?” she prompted gently.

Bill heaved a long, defeated sigh. “Because… when you let someone know how much you need them, how much of a hold they have on you, it’s no different than telling them that they own you. And that’s not my thing. That’s _so_ not my thing. Especially when that someone is a Pines.”

Well _that_ was not the answer she had expected. Mabel stared at Bill for a long moment. Surely he was hamming it up. He always did have a flair for the dramatic.

“Oh come on, you having the hots for me doesn’t mean I own you!” she said lightly, hoping to dispel some of his dramatic intensity.

Without warning, Bill pushed her out of his lap, and she tumbled, supine and spread-eagled, back onto the cloud with a yelp. Then he was upon her, pinning her by her wrists and leaning in close.

“I assure you, you totally own me.” His tone was harsh and flippant in traditional Bill fashion, but his expression was as pained and earnest as ever. Mabel experienced a disarming swell of arousal at his sudden aggression. He emitted a growl, no doubt feeling it coming off of her, before continuing, “Cards on the table, Shooting Star. All that chaotic energy you constantly give off is pretty much crack to someone like me, to use the human vernacular. It’s not just ‘the hots.’ It’s _everything_. I need chaos, and it’s _never_ enough. And _your_ chaos just so happens to manifest in the most potent sexual energy this side of the Third Dimension. It’s… it’s… aghhhh…” He interrupted himself by kissing her again.

Mabel kissed back, addled with lust, somehow feeling both humbled and elevated by the depth of his desire for her. It was no wonder she had felt worshipped by him all this time.

“If it would make you feel any better,” she murmured against his lips between kisses, “We can level the playing field again. You could own me, too.” Bill pulled back and looked at her questioningly, the pained expression on his face now one of cautious hope. Knowing he could already see the notion in her head, she elaborated, anyway. “Meaning… we can do this whenever you want. It’s not like I’m not always in the mood myself, and I’ll just come right out and say it. That was pretty freaking spectacular.”

The demon’s breath hitched at that compliment, and he let out a ragged sigh.

“Careful, Shooting Star,” he warned her in a voice that now openly betrayed his hunger, “You don’t know what you’d be getting yourself into, giving me open-ended consent like that. When I say it’s never enough, that’s not hyperbole.”

Mabel chewed her lower lip. This kind of talk out of him both aroused and amused her.

“I’ll take my chances. Anyway, I reserve the right to rescind my open consent at any time. That probably won’t happen as long as you don’t—you know—hurt me.”

She strained against his grasp, rather excited to discover that she couldn’t break away even if she wanted to, he had such a strong hold on her. Bill stared down at her in a way she had already begun to recognize as an indication that he was in her mind.

“I enjoy pain… both mine and everyone else’s,” Bill said, stating the obvious, “ _Total_ sadomasochist here. But you’re not. And this particular chaotic energy of yours is generated by your pleasure, not pain. _However_ …,” he cocked his head, a knowing smile touching his lips as he read her, “It seems you do have a thing for some other fun stuff. You like to be tossed around… overpowered… restrained…,” he raised an eyebrow, “…and the _threat_ of pain. Well, well! I’ve witnessed some of your more interesting proclivities the last few months but this is the first I’m seeing of _this_ side of you.”

Mabel struggled in his grasp, delighting in both the restraint itself and the tiny gasp Bill emitted at her spike in excitement.

“It’s actually the first _I’m_ seeing of this side of me,” she admitted, “Seems you’ve not only helped me siphon off some pent-up energy. You’ve also helped me discover a few new kinks. So…,” she curled her bare legs around the silky fabric of the coat that covered his narrow hips and pulled his pelvis down into hers, “Do your worst.”

“Ohhhhh, little human, you are _asking_ for it,” Bill growled as he gathered her wrists in one hand and slammed her arms over her head while his other hand cupped a generous breast before moving down to seize her hip.

Mabel thrilled at the way he was handling her; rough, dominating, but stopping just short of actually hurting her. Suspiciously sharp teeth worried at the tender skin of her neck. And holy shit, where those claws she could feel pricking into her skin through those gloves? Then, with a grunt and an aggressive thrust of his hips, he pushed inside her again, as suddenly as before, but this time, there was no slowdown to acclimate himself to the feel of her. He set a brutal, demanding pace almost immediately, taking what she offered with no reservations.

Lost in a torrid sea of ecstasy, random thoughts flashed through her mind as Bill had his way with her. She wondered at the fact that she hadn’t seen him unbutton his slacks, this time or the previous time. Perhaps a convenience afforded to a shapeshifting demon in the Mindscape. She noticed that he didn’t kiss her during the actual sex act, wondering if it had anything to do with the fact that he had no mouth in his true form, if maybe it wasn’t a natural impulse for him when carnal instinct took over. She noticed that the more overwhelmed she was by pleasure, the more worked up he seemed to get until he was practically in a frenzy, violently jostling her entire body with every snap of his hips as he fucked her. He had completely lost control of himself. He released his hold on her wrists and hip and tangled his fingers in her long hair, burying his face in her neck.

“Shooting Star, Shooting Star, Shooting Star,” he chanted with each breath.

Mabel wrapped her now-freed arms around his back and clawed at the fabric of his coat as she held on for the ride, giving him his fill, while blissfully taking her own.

It was Bill who reached climax first, so intent was he upon meeting his own need. But it didn’t matter. The feel and sound of him coming undone was more than enough to push Mabel over the edge. She cried out his name deliriously, her voice harmonizing with his guttural shouts.

When Mabel regained her senses, she opened her eyes to see Bill gazing down at her with an expression of reverence, though he appeared no less ravenous. Oh boy, he wasn’t kidding when he said it would never be enough. Despite that, he didn’t make a move to take her again.Rather, he disengaged from her body and toppled to his side next to her on the cloud, propping himself up on one elbow so he could watch her as she caught her breath. He seemed to be more or less in control of himself now, looking more like the poised, service-top demon who had so effortlessly seduced her to begin with than the earnest, desperate demon who had just fucked her like his very life depended on it. Mabel honestly wasn’t sure which she preferred.

“And who says you have to choose?” Bill replied to that unvoiced thought, “Like I said, I’m versatile.”

Mabel chuckled. Not a single thought to cross her mind in the dreamscape was safe from Bill. But it was getting to be where she didn’t mind. It was yet another aspect of the balance of power between them that she found so exciting. She rolled to her side and gave him a friendly shove.

“I don’t know whether to say ‘thank you’ or ‘you’re welcome’,” she quipped.

Bill gave her a genuine smile.

“Same here,” he confided.

Mabel returned his smile. She was struck with the keen sense that something had shifted between them. Something significant. Bill may have been honest with her from the beginning, at least regarding any direct questions she asked him, but now it seemed that a wall had come down, and she was finally being trusted with his true vulnerability for the first time.

To any outside viewer, it would appear that _she_ was the vulnerable one, a mortal human lying on a cloud, completely naked, next to an ancient, fully-clothed demon. But she knew better.

“Have you ever been with a human?” She asked on a whim.

There was a pause. Then a chuckle.

“I haven’t been with anyone since before your species even _existed_.”

“Whoa… you really are so old.”

“Kid, you really have no idea.”

“So this was a first for both of us. Your first human, and my first trans-dimensional dream demon. I’m honored… and a little baffled… that you ended such a long span of celibacy just because of me.

“I know. It’s weird,” Bill agreed. He winked at her, something that would have been impossible to do in his true form, she thought with amusement. “But weird is my thing. It’s your thing too. So how’s about we just roll with it?”

That was exactly what he had said to Mabel on their first night together. On impulse, she leaned forward and pressed a light kiss on his lips, feeling him forcibly restrain himself from responding with too much heat. It wouldn’t be long before she would have to wake up and leave him for the day. When she pulled back, she noticed that a lock of golden hair had fallen and obscured one of his eyes again. Suddenly, she was curious.

“Are you… going to stay like this?”

Bill turned his head, his eyes wandering down his lean human form as it reclined beside her.

“I dunno. I rather enjoy it.” His gaze settled on her face again, sly and hungry. “I especially like how you react to it, and the things I can do to you while I’m in it.”

Mabel licked her lips. What an insatiable, irresistible thing he was.

“Likewise… but… I like you as a triangle too! I’d still like to see that form sometimes.”

  
  
Instantly, Bill transformed into his original form, a little glowing triangle the size of Mabel’s head, still reclining next to her.

“Whatever you say, Shooting Star. You own me.”

Mabel felt a surge of affection for that familiar shape of his. She bent and kissed him below his eye. Just as quickly, he popped back into his beautiful human form, and she was struck once more by how it was as much him as the triangle.

  
“And you own me,” she said. She could feel her consciousness beginning to slip away. Bummer. Now more than ever, she didn’t want to leave her dreamscape. But there was nothing for it. Bill looked as disappointed as she felt. She put on a cheery smile for him. There was no need to be sad. She would be back very soon, and from here on out, things would get even more delightful and interesting.

“Same time tonight?”

Bill’s crestfallen expression softened into a wistful smile.

“Hurry back, Kid. I’ll be waiting… and watching."

Moments later, Mabel opened her eyes, curled up in her bed.She was wearing her panties again, and they were soaked through. She thought she might burst with the euphoria that was coursing through her being from the miraculous night she had just experienced.

She had been right. Except Bill Cipher didn’t just _want_ her. He _needed_ her.

And now… she wasn’t really sure what to call this thing they had started. And she _really_ wasn’t sure how or if she would tell Dipper and Great Uncle Ford. The only thing she did know for sure was that she wanted to go back _now_. 

Alas…

She sat up and blew a kiss to her empty room, knowing full well that he would see.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promised him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/25/2021 update. Ugh, it's taking me forever to update! So sorry! Life has been so busy.
> 
> I did take a moment to clean up some of this chapter. There were a few details (particularly the sex scenes) that had really been bugging me, but I like how it reads much better now. 
> 
> Next chapter in the works... hoping to update soon!


End file.
